Common Resume Mistakes Notre Dame Students Make

Creating a resume requires a lot of detail and planning to ensure your most valuable information is being marketed to employers. The Center for Career Development offers several resume building resources for students to create their best resume possible - including resume reviews with a Career Assistant. Below are several common resume mistakes our Career Assistants have noticed Notre Dame students make when creating their resumes.

Listing “soft skills” under the Skills section
Students often list "soft skills" such as organization, leadership, and communication at the bottom of their resumes in their Skills sections. The Skills section is meant for hard skills: specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured, such as language or technical proficiencies. Your soft skills should be demonstrated in your bullets describing each experience.

Naming South Bend as the city relating to Notre Dame in their Education section
University of Notre Dame is located in Notre Dame, IN; every experience relating to Notre Dame should be located in Notre Dame, IN.

Using the words ‘worked’ or ‘helped’ to describe an experience
Weak verbs like 'worked' or 'helped' say nothing about what skills you’ve acquired and do nothing to draw the reader in. The Career Development Guide has a complete list of dynamic action verbs for students to utilize in their bullets. These are available to review on the CCD website.

Describing the organization more than the position you held there
Employers are looking to hire YOU—not the company you worked for last summer! Don’t waste space detailing the mission and goals of the company or organization you’ve aligned yourself with. Instead, use that space to describe WHAT you did, HOW you did it, and WHY. Show the skills you’ve developed through each experience.

Keeping high school experiences on your resume after your sophomore year
Employers expect to see high school items on your resume during your first two years of college; they understand that it might take a while to figure out what organizations appeal to you in college. However, after two years, replace those experiences with more relevant and recent accomplishments that show what you’ve been up to since arriving at ND.

Simple mistakes like these are easily avoidable, and the Center for Career Development offers many resources for you to create the best resume possible.

For questions or resume help, walk-ins are Monday through Friday with a Counselor, 2-4pm, and Monday through Thursday with a Career Assistant, 4-7pm. Learning Labs specific to creating your first resume are also available throughout the semester - click here to view available dates and times.

For further questions, please contact the Center for Career Development at 574-631-5200 or email careerdevelopment@nd.edu - we're more than willing to help!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rachael Yemc is a Career Assistant in her second year working with the Center for Career Development. She is majoring inBusiness - IT Management and will graduate from Notre Dame in 2020.